


Like a Boy Holding a Balloon

by nisakomi



Series: The Odd Years: Junhui Birthday Series [3]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Birthday, Food, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 13:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11148936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nisakomi/pseuds/nisakomi
Summary: This is a story about dumplings.And Junhui's birthday.





	Like a Boy Holding a Balloon

**Author's Note:**

> fyi clicking the numbers/return arrows will bring you to the translation/story

You can drink soup out of straws from the ones in Jiangsu. 

Jieqiong showed him a picture once, shoving her phone so close to his nose that his eyes couldn’t focus on the screen, and then she’d laughed when he had to grab her arm and hold it away so he could look at the photograph of soup dumplings the size of her face with their neon orange and green straws sticking out the top. Maybe that comparison didn’t do the soup dumplings justice. Jieqiong’s face could arguably fit in Junhui’s palm, but these dumplings were massive. _Xiao long bao_1 acquired said name because they’re supposed to be _xiao_2 , small dumplings from which you slurp out juice and inevitably burn your tongue. 

These Jiangsu ones were just. Meat buns. 

“Right?!” She laughed again, covering her mouth with the back of one hand, face lit up by her smile. “The Shanghainese and Wuhaners could fight about _xiao long bao_ or _tang bao_3 but I think both parties would agree that if you’re using a straw to drink the soup then you’re just eating a monstrosity. They’re huge!” 

Junhui had curled his tongue around that word silently, _monstrosity_ , filing it in a mental index of new Korean vocabulary that hadn’t made it into his vernacular yet, while Jieqiong continued on. 

“Although, they’ve started selling these plump friends in commercial areas of Shanghai too. The last time I was at _Cheng Huang Miao_4 all the tourists were sucking at straws. I wanted to tell everyone ‘these aren’t the _xiao long bao_ Shanghai is famous for!’ But I doubt they cared.” Any possible tones of bitterness were erased by her laughter, which returned once again, high and clear. Jieqiong carried her brightness so close and so often it may as well have been another layer of her skin. When she touched Junhui’s shoulder, the joy spread infectiously through him and he laughed as well. 

“I kind of want to try one,” Junhui said honestly, fingers tapping against his lower lip. “I’ve never been before.”

“Of course you do. Is there anything you wouldn’t eat?” 

“Hey!”

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “I’ll take you. Most people pay if they want personal tours, you know! But I’ll be your free tour guide for Shanghai and we can go pray for our debuts or something.” 

She said the word _debut_ and although they both smiled, at the time, they also understood that the offer was a gesture, as neither of them could take time off before their unfathomably distant debuts. 

And now that they’ve both debuted, a vacation seems even more unfathomably far away. 

 

 

 

 

 

“What are you up to?”

“Huh?” Junhui looks up from the bowl of dough in front of him to see Minghao gawking at the scene in the kitchen with a raised eyebrow. 

Minghao doesn’t say more, but he scrunches up his nose and shifts his gaze down to the flour.

The water from the tap Junhui’s turned on cuts through the silence, and Junhui rolls up his sleeves to rinse his hands before answering the question. “Oh. I looked up a recipe for making this from scratch.”

Without having to vocalize the thought, Minghao contorts the expression on his face to make it abundantly clear he doesn’t think Junhui could pour water out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel. But at least he didn’t say anything out loud. Maybe Minghao was finally trying to be less of a jerk.

“Are you making _kalguksu_5?” 

Or maybe Minghao was reigning himself in only until the clock struck midnight and it was no longer Junhui’s birthday. 

Junhui turns the tap back off and dries his hands on a towel without replying. 

“You know they sell _yi mian_6 at the convenience store right? At this rate your _chang shou mian_7 isn’t going to be finished before it’s already the 11th. Also, the pre-packaged version would probably taste better.” 

Junhui catches Minghao’s apprehension between his shoulder blades and lets the skepticism roll off his arms to the rolling pin in his hands, where he drives all his energy into flattening the balls of pale dough into smooth circles. “Not noodles,” Junhui says. He lifts his right shoulder to indicate the other bowl on the counter, the one filled with the dark green of vegetables and light pink of raw ground pork. 

“ _Jiao zi_8?” 

Junhui nods. “It’s been a while, right?” 

Once again Minghao expresses his feelings with his facial features instead of his words, gifting Junhui a look of bewilderment that fuels the childish part in Junhui which enjoys rendering him speechless. Minghao was the type of person who always had an answer for things. He was a fixer, a go-getter, and it had taken the two of them a while before Junhui could say things or do things and not have Minghao think something was _wrong_ or needed to be _fixed_. Some things just are. And that’s the way it is.

“Dumplings are, like, the opposite of long-life,” Minghao says disbelievingly. “They’re…small. You don’t have dumplings for your birthday. You have them for New Year’s. You’re completely missing the point.” 

“That’s a northerner thing.” Junhui would wave his hand but he’s busy folding a dumpling in half, pleating a neat fringe into the dumpling wrappers, palm gentle around the squishy and plump filling, fingers firm as he squeezes the two edges of the circle together so the dumplings don’t fall apart when being boiled. He shrugs and picks up the next wrapper, holding it comfortably in his hand before using chopsticks to smack a hearty amount of filling in the centre. “Our New Year’s _zhu shi_9 was always _nian gao_10.” He puts down the chopsticks thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s why _ddeokbokki_11 was always so familiar.” 

“By northerner thing you mean right thing. Rice cakes instead of dumplings for _chun jie_12? That’s just just plain wrong.” 

“Eat _nian gao_ so you can _nian nian zhang gao~_13 That’s why I’m so tall. I ate the right food.” 

Minghao narrows his eyes. “You’re like, two centimetres taller than me.”

“That’s from eating rice cakes!” Junhui sways from side to side, leading with his hips, and the mocking song and dance earns him an eye-roll from Minghao. Another point to Junhui. 

“That doesn’t explain why you want dumplings for your birthday though. This is practically asking for your life to be cut short. Did you think this through?” 

Junhui had thought about it. He thought about making himself ramyun, and then thought better of it. “Don’t tell me you really believe the old people superstitions.”  


“It’s not superstition. It’s tradition.”

“Well, we can make new traditions. I wanted dumplings, and they remind me of family.”

That’s not a confession or anything. Nor is it supposed to garner sympathy. But Junhui can sense Minghao softening behind him, and, well, yeah, he supposes that was kind of the intended effect. It’s what Junhui was thinking too.

Last year his mother surprised him on his birthday by showing up to Korea unannounced, and because they were between promotion periods, they were able to eat and relax a bit. This year there was Music Core on Saturday and Music Bank the day before and Inkigayo the day after. Being on stage was fun, even if they had to be at the broadcasting station at ungodly hours, and the Seventeen members perpetually carried their own brand of bonding but it wasn’t his family.

Junhui misses Yangyang something fierce. 

Minghao clears his throat, and Junhui, afraid of whatever he’s about to say, quickly puts in a, “So you have to eat them with me, _xiao Hao Hao di di_14!” 

For a very long while, Minghao bites back his protest at the nickname and urge to say something more, and when the battle with himself concludes, he mutters, “Well, you could have bought dumpling wrappers at the supermarket too. God knows why you had to make them yourself. Who wants to eat dumplings with thick skins?” 

“Now, now,” Junhui says, a placating smile on his lips. “Just go sit and when I’m done I’ll bring them over okay? Then we’ll eat,” he says, with a decisive nod. 

Minghao acquiesces, his lack of protest telling in and of itself. “Don’t forget the vinegar!” 

 

 

 

 

 

For as long as he could remember, Junhui ate his _chao shou_15 drenched in red chilli oil, feeling like a grown up when he swallowed down the accompanying heat. Someone would tell his mother “Your son is really good at eating spicy food!” and the words would cool the flames on his tongue, enough that he would suck in air instead of reaching for a drink of water. When his mother made dumplings, it was the Sichuan style _chao shou_ that they referred to, and when Junhui learned to write the characters, he thought it was apt that they were called ‘folded hands’, like the folding hands of his mother. 

“They’re basically _hun tun_16 ,” Minghao had told him, “just under a different name.”

“They’re not!” Although presented with the facts, it seemed very much that Minghao was telling the truth. Years of growing up in a certain way prevented Junhui from acknowledging this.

“They even have the square wrappers. Just admit it, you’re a fan of spicy wontons.” 

That was what Junhui really couldn’t stomach, the idea that they were common or meaningless, when they held so many memories for Junhui, special occasions and family time wrapped up in floury gold. Thinking about them was like hearing his mother’s voice, and eating them like swallowing her love. 

“Well, whatever. You can make them for me and I’ll tell you if they’re really any good,” Minghao had said, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a thin finger. “Maybe not now though…I think… _shang huo le_17 ,” he said, trying his best not to touch the pimple growing on his chin. 

Eventually, Junhui made them a pot of dumplings, and Minghao had been adequately appalled by the way Junhui soaked his dumplings in black vinegar and hot sauce until they were so sour and spicy his lips would pucker and swell from just a few bites. Minghao’s ideas about how to eat dumplings were very different. All of their food opinions were very different. 

Minghao liked lamb and cumin, Junhui liked seafood and peppercorn. His dumpling fillings were automatic from how he remembered his mother made them, shrimp, scallions, pork, and water chestnuts.

“There’s no vegetable!”

“There’s water chestnuts!”

“Water chestnuts are not vegetables!” Minghao had emphasized that point with tapping his fingers against his temple like Junhui needed to learn to think. 

Junhui thought he should experiment more with filling types, and when Minghao conceded, he pointed out that to appreciate the insides, you’d have to be sparing with how much vinegar you dipped them in. 

When they ate dumplings made from square wrappers, Junhui called them _chao shou_ and Minghao called them _hun tun_ , and at the end of the day, they’d agree just to eat _shui jiao_18 , downing them so fast they were practically swallowed whole. It was probably better this way. _Chao shou_ were a family thing, his step father teasing his little brother by swiping dumplings when he wasn’t looking, his mom sighing exasperatedly, Junhui alternating between practically drinking the chilli oil and gulping down water. 

But _shui jiao_ , in their own way, were a family thing too. The same way Xu Minghao had become, indisputably, Wen Junhui’s family away from home. 

 

 

 

 

 

In an interview, Junhui once likened Seventeen to a family rather than a boyband. 

A family, on the day-to-day, may separate to do their individual activities, spend time apart, and so forth. But family always came together, supported each other, and loved unconditionally. Family tolerated each other, accepted each other, picked you back up when you fell down, took you down a peg when you were too high up. Family grounded you. Family meant togetherness, unity.

Family is a dumpling, round and whole, and only complete when all the parts come together. Stuck together no matter what. 

An idol group needed idols, people like Soonyoung whose very molecules were composed of star stuff, whose every fibre of being exuded charisma, who belonged on the stage more than anywhere else. People like Seungkwan and Seokmin, whose voices could bring peace to warring nations. People like Seungcheol, who worked hard to improve their singing and dancing abilities at every opportunity. 

If Seventeen were just a boyband, Junhui isn’t sure where he’d fit in. But it’s not, it’s a family, so he knows his precise place. He’s Jun, smushed between Joshua and Hoshi, each of the members making up the filling, blanketed by the smooth Seventeen wrapping. 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hurry up, it’s almost midnight!” 

“You were the one who said dumplings aren’t tradition,” Junhui says, amused. 

“Yeah, but if you want to start a new birthday tradition, you have to do it _on your birthday_. Otherwise, what’s the point? Or are you going to tell me that you’ve been lying this whole time and that you were actually born on June 11th?”

"Well, I suppose if I weren't born in a leap year, that _would_ be my birthday, actually.” Junhui sets down the platter of dumplings, visibly cooling with the steam billowing into the air. None of them had burst in the boiling water, but Junhui puts down the towel he had used to hold the hot plate and pokes at the _shui jiao_ with his chopsticks, spreading them apart so that the skins don’t stick together or rip. Once he’s satisfied, he heads back into the kitchen, rummaging for bowls and chopsticks, balancing them in one hand while the other carries a nearly empty bottle of _Zhenjiang_19 vinegar and jar of _lao gan ma_20. 

“What did you use for filling this time?” Minghao asks, when Junhui returns. He quickly takes the bowls and chopsticks from his arms and sets them down, eager to start eating. 

“Pork and chive.”  
  
“Good. That’s exactly what I was craving.”

“Well you’d better eat up, because I think they’ll get smelly if we keep them in the fridge.”

Then:

“Is that food?” Both Minghao and Junhui turn to the source of the new voice.

Wonwoo doesn’t seem to notice the attention he’s attracted, eyes drawn toward the plate of dumplings, hand going immediately to his stomach. “I’m starving.”

“You’re always hungry,” Minghao points out, chopsticks in hand. 

Junhui silently gets up again to fetch other set of dinnerware, but he doesn’t miss the unabashed laugh Wonwoo gives Minghao, completely unfazed at being called out.

Around a mouthful of food Minghao mutters, “I guess I should be used to it, Mingyu’s always…” and then whatever else he has to say gets abandoned to shovel another dumpling into his mouth. 

Soon, Wonwoo is sitting beside him eating at an equally alarming speed, the two of them polishing off half the platter before Junhui’s sat down and had one. 

“Are they any good?” Junhui asks, before dipping a _shui jiao_ into his mixture of vinegar and hot sauce and taking a ginger bite. The dumpling is still piping hot, and Junhui doesn’t understand how the other two could be eating this fast without burning the roofs of their mouths. It’s a bit chewier than usual, with his hand-made dough wrappers, but he got the pork to chive ratio pretty good and just the right amount of salt. 

Despite the doughiness, Minghao shoots him a nod of approval, mouth too full to speak. Wonwoo doesn’t say anything either, but he reaches for the hot sauce and keeps eating, which says enough.

“See?” Junhui jabs a thumb in Wonwoo’s direction. “ _Jiao zi jiu shi jia ting. Ta shi Yuan You. Tuan tuan yuan yuan de yuan._21 ”

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 21 Translational Footnotes (for Junhui's 21st birthday)

 

1 soup dumpling; lit. 'little cage bun', a Shanghainese specialty ↩  
2 small or little ↩  
3 soup dumpling; lit. 'soup bun', very similar to the Shanghainese version but with a different type of dough, specialty in Wuhan ↩  
4 Shanghai Temple Of the Town God ↩  
5 Korean knife cut noodles ↩  
6 a type of flat egg/wheat noodle often used for chang shou mian (see 7) ↩  
7 longevity noodles; traditionally eating long noodles signified a long life for whoever was eating them. Often consumed on birthdays, with family. ↩  
8 dumplings ↩  
9 literally translates into "staple food", referring to the main carb of a meal (rice, noodles, etc.) ↩  
10 rice cakes ↩  
11 Korean spicy stir-fried rice cakes ↩  
12 Spring Festival aka Lunar New Year ↩  
13 This is wordplay. The word for rice cakes can be literally translated into "year cake". The phrase "nian nian zhang gao" means "to grow taller every year". The gao meaning cake sounds the same as gao meaning tall or high. ↩  
14 small Haohao little brother (it's so much less clunky in chinese!) ↩  
15 chao shou are a very Sichuan thing, and Junhui's mom is from Chongqing which is not Sichuan but it's basically...they are honestly just large wontons except as with all things in that province, they're usually super spicy. the literal translation fo chao shou is "folded hands" ↩  
16 y'all call these friends "wontons" ↩  
17 would you translate this literally as "on fire"? shang huo is a chinese folk medicine concept meaning excessive internal heat. it's used to explain all sorts of maladies and based on (perhaps not altogether scientific) internal body imbalances, something to do with yin and yang, what you eat, the weather, etc. ↩  
18 lit. water dumpling; refers to cooking style i.e. boiled ↩  
19 aka Chinkiang vinegar, a common rice-based black vinegar ↩  
20 lit. Old Godmother, a brand of chilli sauces...i don't know any chinese person that doesn't have this in their kitchen tbh ↩  
21 "Dumplings are family. He's Wonwoo. The same "Won" as in unity and togetherness." Wonwoo's Chinese name is Yuan You, and tuan tuan yuan yuan is a pretty common phrase that you use to wish other people being happily together with their families. ↩

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 宋冬野 - 城市说  
> Song Dongye - The City Says
> 
> 我看到你曾经的样子  
> I see your past appearance  
> 像拿着气球 的孩子  
> Like a boy holding a balloon  
> 你以为它能带你飞得很远，但是  
> You thought that it would fly you far away, but  
> 它飞走了，你还没睁开眼睛。  
> It's gone now, you have not yet opened your eyes.
> 
> 哪一天你拥有了翅膀，请替我飞翔。  
> If one day you have wings, please fly for me.  
> 《生日快乐，文俊辉》


End file.
